Transference: Part 2

Kira wandered up to her commanders tent on the battle field. She wondered how many captives they had gained so far today. Last week they had lost more people to the other side than she would have liked. Her people the Eronese had been fighting the Kasians to the East for two years now.
Inside the tent her commander and fellow officers gathered around a map.
“Makalum!” her commander, Desiree Woltz, barked at her.
“Yes, sir!”
“We’ve lost 50 soldiers to the other side so far today!”
Kira winced. Things had started to turn down hill in the last little while.
“And we had 2 casualties!”
Kira gaped.
“You mean like….”
“Two people are dead! Permanently dead! They will never become ancestors.”
It was practically unheard of in wars, or ever, everyone used stun guns and tried to take as many prisoners as they could. No one actually died!
“How?”
“The other side is claiming it was an accident and offering the bodies back as well as some of the prisoners to make amends. Some of the officers and soldiers on the field however said they saw someone use an old-fashioned gun, a killing gun. They fired three times but only hit targets twice.”
“Do we have a plan of action?”
“That is what we are working on. Have a seat”

* * * * *

Liam stared in astonishment.
“So the Archives are like retirement for the Ancestors,” said the old man “And you can use the statistics that show up with this program to see how often and Ancestor is summoned, and when they haven’t been used for a long enough time then we transfer their consciousness to the Archive section so they don’t clog up the mainframe.”
“How long a time do most people get to be Ancestors?”
“These days… oh about five years or so. It used to be longer back in my day but you damn kids keep wanting to die at younger and younger ages. It is next to impossible to keep up with.”
“Five years? But I thought we were supposed to be immortal?”
“And you are in a way. But it’s kind of like you get five years of glory and then you get shoved inside a box and left to collect dust. Just like everything down here,” he waved his hand around proudly.
“But nobody knows that! Why would anyone agree to that if they knew that!”
“And that my young protégé is why they never bother to tell you.”